Sorry to see Sen. Snow lose in this way

Sen. Snow, I am so sorry that people voted based on advertisements rather than on a candidate’s positions. I was appalled to learn of the very misleading mailing saying that you “wanted to give convicted rapists a second chance” right before the election. I was very glad that Scott McLeod of The Smoky Mountain News clearly explained the truth about your position.

I initially looked at such mailings early in the campaign, but when I realized that 90 percent of them were just “hate rhetoric,” I recycled the rest without looking at any of them. Obviously others did read them and were swayed by such rhetoric.

I thank you for your service and wish you the best. Perhaps we’ll see you back.

Reading Room

“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

— George Orwell

We live in an age — the relativity of truth — in which Orwell’s adage seems as dated as monocles or top hats. Just as Darwin’s theory of evolution led to Social Darwinism, a philosophy pitting one human being against another with survival of the fittest as the supreme law for success, so Einstein’s theory of relativity changed popular philosophy and cultural mores as radically as it did the study of physics.

This Must Be the Place

Outside the Tipping Point Brewing windows on Main Street, heavy snowflakes cascaded upon downtown Waynesville last Wednesday night. Cars cautiously cruised through the intersection, with the snowfall increasing as the minutes ticked by.